


An Unlikely Accident

by swaneewhistleandkazoo



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Daily Prophet, Escape Attempts, Fluff, Humor, Injury Recovery, Interviews, Kneazles, Newt is not a good patient, No one believes this is really how he got hurt, Reporters, St Mungo's Hospital
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-27
Updated: 2018-04-27
Packaged: 2019-04-28 15:28:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14452206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swaneewhistleandkazoo/pseuds/swaneewhistleandkazoo
Summary: Newt is hospitalised in St Mungo’s due to an accident at home but nobody believes this is how he really got hurt.





	An Unlikely Accident

A lifelong passion for all creatures great and magical and the unfortunate ability to end up slap bang in the middle of any magical catastrophe whenever he steps outdoors means that Newt Scamander has a depressingly good familiarity with the fading off white ceiling panels of St Mungos Hospital for Magical Maladies. To be honest he has lost count of all the times he has ended up staring up at the ceiling while his body knits itself back together.

He’s been here for bites, stings, cauldron accidents and falling of broomsticks and hippogriffs. He’s spent several weeks there recovering on the first floor from a nasty burn given to him by a Hungarian Horntail and a month on the spell damage floor recovering from duelling injuries sustained during a fight with Grindelwald’s followers. These injuries he can bare with good humour as they are the result of an active and productive life helping those in need.

Its because of those previous injuries are what make this stay in hospital so much more galling. He is in here not because of some beast or even because his heroic tendencies got the better of his self preservation. No, he’s here because he tripped over one of the Kneazles and fell down two flights of stairs, breaking the banister on the way down, and landing on the cool flagstone floor.

Thank goodness Tina had been home and whisked him to St Mungos as soon as she heard to commotion. Loud crashes are not unusual in their home, however she told him when he regained awareness, the lack of swearing afterwards had made her realise that this crash was abnormal and made her check. 

His unfortunate resilience to Skelgrow made healing the multiply fractures even more difficult and a fix that should have taken a few minutes had been lengthened into a fortnight stay in hospital. His wonderful wife visited him every day before and after work bringing him updates on all of their creatures and of her work with the Aurors. Theseus visited him often and so did Jacob and Queenie.

He suspected that Tina had conspired with the Healers to keep him in as he had glimpsed on his chart there was a note that read:

_Do not release patient until he has fully healed, Patient is a risk to his own health._

He had to admit they had on that point if he had been at home he would be straight back inside his case and with his bones still so fragile he probably would have gotten hurt again.

*

Frustratingly almost no one believed this was really how he had gotten hurt.

His involvement with magical creatures, his work with dragons during the war and Dumbledore’s vendetta against Grindelwald means that almost no one believed that his most recent serious injuries had been caused by something as trivial as tripping over a cat. Not even Tina was fully convinced and she had been in the next room. And his brother continually mocked him over such a mundane way of getting hurt.

“Really Newt, are you sure this isn’t a cry of attention?” and that sort of thing.

For the first few day’s he had been in too much pain to resist the decision to keep him in too much. Five days after being hurt he had grown bored of reading and counting the ceiling tiles. More than the boredom, he hated that he had left Tina with the burden of caring for all of his creatures, visiting him at the hospital and still completing her shifts at the Auror office. In no doubt, she was more than capable at shouldering the workload but he was her husband he was supposed to help her carry the burdens life through at them not add to it. Despite her attempting to reassure him that she didn’t mind and that Jacob and Queenie were helping out with his creatures, it still upset him greatly.

All his life he had been active and an enforced period of rest while others did his work did not sit well with him.

 Thus the escape attempts had begun, they had started off with him simply trying to wheel himself down to the street and quietly disapparate home, this attempt had had him spotted by the welcome witch and escorted back to his bed where he spent the next night silently plotting his next attempt.

Attempting to bribe Theseus to help getting him out had got him laughed at for a good five minutes

His next attempt had been more elaborate: with him disguising himself by transfiguring a magnificent goatee and “borrowing” the man on the next beds overcoat and crutches and hobbling out of the emergency exit. Getting down the stairs had been one of the hardest things he’d ever done and had left him dizzy with pain and panting from exertion. Nevertheless after a short rest he’s slipped out the door and gotten almost all the way down the street before security had chased him down.   

His third and final attempt had consisted of him climbing out onto the ledge and trying to descend down with magical ropes. You’d think a man who had scaled mountains to observe phoenixes in their nests would have been able cope with scaling a building but it had soon become clear that he had overestimated his recovery and had been found by hospital staff three floors below his, balanced on a ledge shivering and panting.

 After that incident Tina, apocalyptic with rage and fear, had furiously berated him for an hour and threatened to extend his bed rest to a month. Swimming with guilt he had surrendered to his bed rest with as good a grace as he could muster.

*

Twelve days into his bed rest and freedom looming tantalisingly and he’s running down the clock until Tina visits him after her shift ends when he gets an unexpected and unwelcome visitor. For once he’s trying to read the paper instead of fantasising about escaping and is part way through reading an engrossing article on how best to trim your Devil’s Snare, when the door to his ward opens with a loud bang. It makes his jump and lose his place.

The man is clearly a reporter and he’s gotten distressingly good at recognising reporters when he sees them these past few years. Reports like magical beasts exist in their own different classifications scale with some being competent, factual reporters (X) and some being blatant gossip hungry newshounds with zero credibility and morals in sniffing out scandal (XXXXX).

As he watches the man approach him beaming a toothy smile he can tell that this man is a definite XXXXX and he really needs to watch his step with this one. Newt doesn’t like reporters at the best of times and right here right now, injured he feels vulnerable. He wishes Tina was here, with her good looks and brisk New York no nonsense attitude the reporter wouldn’t stand a chance.

The correct care of Devil’s Snare must wait for now and he mentally prepares himself for the worst this odious little man can throw at him.

“Mr Scamander” The reporter’s voice is grating and far too loud, if he’s not careful he’s going to bring the security guards down on him like a ton of brick.

Wouldn’t that be nice.

“I’m Archibald Suture from the Daily Prophet and I was wondering if you would answer a few questions for me?”

“I’d rather not”

However Mr Suture has the subtlety of a steamroller and plows on regardless.

“We at the Prophet learned that you had been injured and required a lengthily recuperation at St Mungos Hospital of Magical Maladies, do you care to comment on how you sustained your injuires?”

He’s somewhat impressed by Thesesus and Tina’s ability to keep his accident out of the  media up until know but the truth will out eventually. So keeping in mind everything his editor has told him about dealing with the media he give a little smile and launches into his story.

“I tripped over one of our family kneazles and fell down two flights of stairs. I broke the banister and ended up on the floor, where my dear wife Tina found me and brought me to St Mungo’s, I’ve been in here ever since”

Its probably best not to mention his escape attempts.

The reporter looks crestfallen, clearly expecting to have gotten a juicy scope on his latest escapades involving Dumbledore. Unfortunately this only distracts him for a minute before he launches into a volley of questions.

“Are you certain that that is how your extensive injuries occurred?”

Really what will it take for people to believe that sometimes he can get hurt without being involved with saving the magical community?

Or a Beast?

“Are you certain that an attack did not take place against you perpetrated by Grindelwald’s followers?”

Not unless the cat works for them

“Do you care to comment as to what Dumbledore is planning to do with Grindelwald? Are you part of his inner circle?”

Okay, now the closeness of the reporter in his face and the rapid fire questions is starting to distress him. He doesn’t want to utter a single word that would disrupt Dumbledore’s trust in him nor to revel any of the plans and theories that Dumbledore speculated to him and Tina to become public knowledge. Also if he says anything he risks breaking the Secrets act he signed with the International Wizarding Commission and that could get him locked away in Azkaban, far away from Tina and the rest of his family.

Just when things are starting to get too much, the ward door flies open making everyone jump. People can say a lot of things about Tina but she has brilliant timing and is quick on the draw.

Before the reporter can draw breath she onto him.

Her voice is flat and cold when she addresses him “What do you think you are doing in here with my husband?” The reporter flinches like shes cracked a whip at him. Clearly the media are not supposed to be disturbing him. She’s glorious in her fury and he watches enamoured as she forces the reporter down the ward and out the door with little more that a patented New York glare and a few sharp words.  Tina slams the door behind him and stalks back up the ward towards him, muttering every insult under the sun about reporters.

He really wishes he was well so he could show her how much he appreciates her.

She regards him for a full minute cataloguing his face and emotions and he takes advantage it to admire her dark eyes. Eventually they crinkle up into a little smile and she bends down to cup his check and kiss him gently on the lips.

Reaching for his forgotten paper she smoothes it out. Turning it to the crossword section that they do everyday here, at home and whenever they travel, she settles down in the chair next to his bed.

“Really?” her eyes alight with mirth and voice full of fondness “what am I going to do with you? Reporters, Mercy Lewis?!? At least there were no escape attempts today.”

Two more days, he tells himself, Two more days.


End file.
